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IIT-GN to study safety and durability of solar power plants- 20-Sep-2011

Ahmedabad: The Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, in collaboration with US-based Underwriter Laboratory, has undertaken a project to study the safety and durability of solar power plants in the country.
    
The objective of the project is to provide support to the emerging solar power industry of the country and help it design better models for lasting performances, ultimately making them economically more viable.
    
"We have collaborated with the US-based Underwriter Laboratory (UL) to test the safety and durability features of a solar power plant. A small solar plant will be made available by the Gujarat Energy Development Agency for the purpose," IIT-GN Director Prof Sudhir Jain told. The UL is a premier US-based independent organisation on product safety, testing and certification.
    
"The industry still faces some challenges with regards to the solar power plants, such as controlling damage from excess radiation and protection from rainfall. The project findings are expected to benefit the industry and throw light on how to develop more sturdy models of solar power plants, which are safer and more economically feasible primarily due to design," Jain said.
    
"This collaboration with the UL will also provide a unique opportunity to establish a Photovoltaic Systems Research Centre at the institute with a proposed 10 KW system," he said. "The research centre will enhance the institutes' ability to attract ancillary photovoltaic industry like inverter and micro  inverter, connectors, storage system devices, to use this facility for product research and development," Jain said.
    
"In the long term, the centre will emerge as an enabler for development of student curriculum around renewable energy with the ability to work on a practical system," Jain said. The three-year-old IIT-GN had joined hands with the UL in 2009 to undertake joint multi-disciplinary research projects in fire safety engineering.
    
The agreement was for two projects at least that are interrelated - a national fire registry and solutions to reduce hazards for firefighters. "Both the projects are to be funded by UL," an IIT-GN faculty member said. The national fire incident database will document fire events in India. Such a database will help develop the right engineering practises for fire prevention, detection and suppression.
    
As a part of national fire database project IIT-GN, students will get a chance to meet staff of US Fire Administration managing the US National Fire Incident Database System (NFIRS) and will try to develop a model on similar lines for the fire department in India.
    
"UL has started several student research programs at IIT-GN under the guidance of academic staff. These projects are part of institutes initiative to build academia–industrial collaboration," Jain said. "With the UL, the focus of the projects is to develop the science of safety," he said.